Futurama‘s Comic Cosmonauts Recall Best Bits From First 100 Episodes

Futurama's milestone 100th episode arrives Thursday night, but the warm, weird remembrances of the show's creative team have come in early.

Click through the gallery of images from "The Mutants Are Revolting" and other episodes above for the favorite moments of executive producer David X. Cohen and voice actors Billy West, Lauren Tom, Maurice LaMarche and David Herman from Futurama's first 100 episodes.

Mark Mothersbaugh and other mutant rockers from Devo emerge from the sewers in Futurama's 100th episode, "The Mutants Are Revolting," pictured above. But David X. Cohen has a soft spot for an early appearance of Earth's most venerable rock-hop trio.

"'Hell Is Other Robots' featured our first big musical number, 'Welcome to Robot Hell' from the Beastie Boys," he told Wired.com. "This was a key moment for the series, because we loosened up and went to a higher level of surreality than we had originally planned to allow ourselves."

According to Cohen, some of Futurama's most memorable moments have occurred in the show's comeback sixth season.

"I'm a fan of the Professor having to shoot Hitler out the window in 'The Late Philip J. Fry' [pictured above], because they're in such a rush as they rocket through time in the time machine," Cohen said. "And there's a sequence of Bender jumping over a chasm on the Waldorf Asteroid in 'The Mutants Are Revolting' that's one of my all-time favorites. It falls into the category of 'so dumb it might be brilliant.'"

"My favorite moments of the first 100 episodes," she said, "are (in no particular order) ...

The first time I heard the line 'Good news everyone! I've got bad news.'

When Kif and Amy fall in love.

When Fry gets his head attached to Amy after the car accident.

When Amy, in Leela's body, can't stop stuffing her face and sobs, 'Do you think I should eat more butter?'"

Maurice LaMarche, who plays Amy's alien lover Kif Kroker, is as hot for the last 100 episodes as his co-star Laura Tom. Except it's for another woman.

"I guess my absolute favorite moment from the first 100 episodes was when we were at Comic-Con a few years back, and this gorgeous -- and I mean stunning -- model in a Lara Croft outfit struck up a conversation with me," he said. "Well, somehow, the conversation took a turn into, like, what our sexual fantasies were, and you won't believe this, but it turned
out we had the exact same..."

"Oh," he added. "Wait. You mean my favorite moments from the actual first 100 episodes? Oh. Um, I dunno. Fry's dead dog episode, and Fry's dead nephew episode. You know. The ones everyone likes. Oh, and doing Kif singing "Total Eclipse Of The Heart." I was originally worried it'd too much of a strain, because I have, like, a four-note range, but it ended up being very touching and sweet."

"In the fabulous guest performance by Bea Arthur as Femputer in 'Amazon Women in the Mood,' she gives a speech that's loaded with gibberish about 'femputers' and 'fembots,' and their subjugation by 'manputers' and 'manbots.' Yet the emotion is so heartfelt, it's hilarious."

Meanwhile, David Herman, voice of Futurama characters like Roberto, Scruffy and too many more to list, is partial to the performance of a recurring political actor.

Although it didn't garner as much critical acclaim as other Futurama laughers, the straight-to-DVD film The Beast With a Billion Backs contained some animated experimentation that should be congratulated, said Cohen.

"There's a 3-D battle sequence at the start of this episode with Earth's forces attacking the giant space octopus, Yivo," he said. "It's all a single continuous shot of close to 30 seconds with no cuts. Totally mind-blowing work by the animators at Rough Draft Studios."

Who's got love for Zoidberg? Cohen, of course.

"In 'Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?'" he said, "there's a fight-to-the-death-in-an-arena scene on Dr. Zoidberg's home planet, Decapod 10. The audience rises for the national anthem, which turns out to be the fight music from the original Star Trek. This actually made me cry with happiness the first time I saw it."

Like The Simpsons before it -- and unlike Family Guy and other popular animated series that came later -- Futurama has successfully balanced its laser-sharp satire with compelling pathos. Especially in "The Luck of the Fryrish," said Cohen.

"That was the first episode where we went for a big emotional ending, and I think we actually pulled it off," he said. "I'm proud of this one because of the high degree of difficulty of getting people emotionally invested in a sci-fi cartoon. The results here gave us the confidence to go for more emotional stuff as the series went on, including the infamous 'Jurassic Bark' episode and several good ones in the current season."